Have you seen the constant articles in the news about food sources be tainted with heavy metals or foods, such as the latest news that much of the chocolate for sale contains amounts of lead. Also the articles about food containing things that they should not contain such as the plastic in rice in China? Sadly these kinds of food issues are nothing all that new. In Fr. Fahey's book, the Church and Farming, he addresses many of these things. It use to be common place that grain mills would add fillers to bulk the flour out and bring in a higher dollar.

Any time that our food is processed from its original state and/or grown by a large corporation we will risk the danger of contaminates in our food sources along with food that is not healthful for our bodies.

Today we are sharing an excerpt from Fr. Fahey's wonderful book, which was written in the 1950's, regarding the processing of food. What the danger it poses to our health and how we should avoid them. We previously shared an excerpt from this wonderful book on our blog, incase you have missed you can find the link below:

Processing of Food in General

The Church and Farming
By: Father Denis Fahey
​+ Imprimatur 1952

​I have devoted so much space to bread because of its importance, that I must limit myself to some general observations concerning other foods. The work is simplified for me, however, by the excellent Appendix I, contributed by Dr. N. Philip Norman to Tomorrow's Food. From that very valuable statement, which I strongly recommend to my readers to study in its entirety, I take a few extracts:

"Food in modern times undergoes amazing treatment. Provident Nature has given us food-stuffs that are perfect for man's utilization, but we are not connect. We mutilate the original food pattern: refined, polish and separate it into fractions; hold it in undated cans or packages for indefinite periods; add chemical preservatives; cook it carelessly; and finally, add vitamins and minerals to make it fit for human consumption … Can there be any explanation for this meddling and mutilating of our food except huge profits to processing concerns? Certainly the public's health is deriving no benefits from such tampering … Consider another sign of the times - the constant increase in size and number of hospitals .. .What we are suffering from is malnutrition, plus the innumerable ills that follow in its wake…"

Large Businesses & Foodstuffs

"Large businesses have developed for handling our foodstuffs. They now dominate our minds, and it will require unremitting, concerted efforts for us to free ourselves. Their attention has not primarily been focussed on healthier human beings. As a result of advertising campaigns and clever propaganda, we have come to think as they want us to think; we have accepted what the have told us as facts. Not only have our thinking and acting been influenced, but our tastes have been so conditioned that we now crave the nutritionally minus concoctions they prepare for us … To elucidate what has been happening to our food supply, we give a few examples:

"Polishing rice- which robs the cereal of its antineuritic factor.

Separating grains into fractions instead of using the whole grain- which gives u bread and cereals of inferior quality.

'Refined' table sugar - all minerals and vitamins are extracted from sugar cane or beet juice for this product.

Combining berries and fruits with large quantities of 'refined' sugar in jellies, jams and preserves.

Citrus fruits, picked before they are ripe or subjected to gas treatment to develop colour.

Perpeared and pre-cooked breakfast foods and cereals.

Bolted (literally filtered) flours, chiefly wheat and corn.

Meats and fish are … soaked in 'smoke solutions' or injected with… chemicals and 'smoke solutions'...

Mass production of eggs' which gives us non fertile eggs, devoid of an essential hormone...

Addition of artificial coloring and flavoring to foods gone insipid because of processing, etc. etc.

​Homogenized milk!"

Calories

"Although research in nutrition has revealed that the caloric and biologic (quality) food values are interrelated, it is with the latter that we are chiefly concerned. When we ask how many calories a certain meal contains, we are inquiring into the amount of heat units it will produce.

The benefits that man derives from food, however, cannot be measured only in calories; food is not to man what coal is to a furnace. One of these benefits has to do with disease prevention.. Lowered resistance follows faulty nutrition as night follows day.

Many refined or otherwise processed 'new foods', such as those we have already listed, have been robbed of vital, health-promoting factors. The food processors earn large profits for their mutilation of food patterns, which if left undisturbed are entirely right for our consumption and are not in need of being 'enriched,' 'restored,' or 'fortified.' Food so devoid of nutritional value as to require 'restoration,' 'fortification,' or 'enrichment' is not wholesome food … As a chemical nutritionist, the writer has had considerable experience in the practical application of nutrition principles to his patents."

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Credit: Wikipedia Commons

It would be possible to give what may be termed an a posteriori proof of the physical degeneration caused by processed foods, by selecting passages from Dr. Weston A. Price's fine book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, already alluded to. The book is illustrated by photographs taken all over the world. What Dr. Price says about two countries as far apart as Switzerland and New Zealand is typical of what he found everywhere, as a result of the introduction of processed in the place f natural foods. Of Switzerland he reports: "High immunity to dental caries, freedom from deformity of the detail arches and face, and sturdy physiques with high immunity to disease were all found associated with physical isolation, and with forced limitation in selection of foods. This resulted in a very liberal use of dairy products and whole-rye bread, in connection with plant foods, and with meat served about once a week. The individuals in the modernized districts were found to have widespread tooth decay. Many had facial and dental arch deformities and much susceptibility to diseases. These conditions were associated with the use of refined ceral flours, a high intake of sweets, canned goods, sweetened fruits, chocolate, and a greatly reduced use of dairy products. I inquired of several clinicians in Switzerland dental caries and tuberculosis among the people of Switzerland. I noted that the reports indicated that the two diseases were generally associated. We shall find a corollary to this in many studies in other parts of the world."

On pages 207, 208, 210, 211, Dr. Price gives excellent photographs both of Maori and white inhabitants of New Zealand. The following are some of his comments on the photographs: "Since the discovery of New Zealand the primitive natives, the Maori, have had the reputation of having the finest teeth and finest bodies of any race in the world. Only one tooth per thousand teeth had been attacked by tooth decay before they came under the influence of the white man. In striking contrast with the beautiful faces of the primitive Maori those born since the adoption of deficient modernized foods are grossly deformed. Note the marked under-development of the facial bones, one of the results being narrowing of the dental arches with crowding of the teeth and under-developtment of the air passages."

"The original primitive Maori had reportedly the finest teeth in the world. The whites now in New Zealand are claimed to have the poorest teeth in the world. An analysis of the two types of food reveals the reason."

The Remedy

The remedy obviously demanded by commonsense is the reorganization of our methods of dealing with food and the reeducation of our people, "Could it not be successfully argued," write James Rorty and Dr. Philip Norman, "that the public investment of money, education and administrative energy in the rationalization of our food economy and culture, all the way from the farm to the dinner table, to the measures of a biological accountancy, would net greater gains in health than an equal investment in medical therapy?"

Two obstacles lie in the way of that sane attitude. As the first obstacle to sane reform concerns the medical profession, I shall allow doctors to put it before my readers.

Reorganizing Our Food Methods

Thank you Father Fahey, your words of wisdom from 64 years ago! They are a great light at the end of this dark tunnel of food confusion that we live in. More and more news of harmful processed foods continue to stream in the news. We constantly bombarded with articles and books telling us to eat this and eat that leaving us throughly overwhelmed. A bit of commonsense, showing that simple whole foods prepared properly, in reasonable amounts and grown locally instead of by agri-industry, are really the most healthful for us! It turns out the quality of food is surely more important than the quantity of food.

​The comments on health care in relation to processd foods could not have hit home more today than it did in Father Fahey's time 64 years ago. With our socialistic health care system, more money is pumped into reaction to disease rather than into prevention of disease. With nutrition not high on the list of education, in our medical system, we are left to ourselves to answer Fr. Fahey's suggestion of a remedy to this ill. Let us share with each other this great information on how processed foods create ill health and WHAT those processed foods LOOK like. They don't all just come in a box, but they might even look like whole foods.

What information did you find most helpful in Father Fahey's writings?

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